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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28226769">Happy endings</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foxmiscellania/pseuds/Foxmiscellania'>Foxmiscellania</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU - NO ONE DIES, AU- everyone lives, Alternate Universe, Jackie welles and V swap places, Other, Spoilers, genderfluid V</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:49:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,701</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28226769</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foxmiscellania/pseuds/Foxmiscellania</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A look into a universe where Jackie has the chip slowly digging space in his brain instead V. Where things end up working out even if it's a little more roundabout than they planned.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Misty Olszewski/Jackie Welles, Panam Palmer/V, Rogue Amendiares/Johnny Silverhand</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Happy endings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Trust me.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Those are the words Jackie is left with after he tells V his fate. That Johnny Silverhand will take him over in only a few weeks. He’s had to stop the guy with pills half a dozen times in the week since then. He tells Mom because she deserves to know.Vik and Misty already knew, and Misty promises to be there no matter what ends up happening. (Honestly the only other person he tells is T-Bug’s corpse as he puts her in a grave. They give her one overlooking the sea, it’s not what she would have wanted but it’s as close as they can get.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows in his head that V is out there doing work, finding leads, talking to people, learning things that he’s not sure how they learn. He’s not dumb, he’s just tired and kind of sad. He’d hoped to go out in either flames or quietly retire and grow old with Misty. Hell maybe have a few kids if Misty wanted them. But instead he hears Johnny call him a coward, tell him to just get it over with already. Lead in the brain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>V tells him “Trust me.”As they go and do their thing. Jackie listens to that voice, the one that repeats “Trust me.” on loop. The one that says I’m going to make this better. I’m going to make sure you have your happy ending.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s been two weeks and he stopped taking the pills because at some point the cutting remarks and threats became a sort of camaraderie with the ghost in his head. He gives as good as he gets. They end up smoking a few times(Jackie chokes on it and Johnny laughs and tastes the smoke on Jackie’s tongue) when V sends him a message.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Trust me.” V says again, introducing him to Takemura, Panam(V got a girlfriend!?) and then they get to work.They explain that they need to find Mikoshi, because all their leads send them to Mikoshi. That Mikoshi will be the way to transfer Johnny out of Jackie’s head, or that they’ll be able to at least untangle most of the brain damage or something. Jackie isn’t totally listening; instead he's watching Johnny.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Johnny listens to V’s words after they mention Mikoshi like a man dying in the desert and he just found an oasis. For the first time Johnny softens when V explains that Alt can pull an engram of her best friend from his body. Johnny demands to know how V knows Alt and V just shrugs and says they haven’t had a chance to talk but they will. They trust that Johnny will be able to help convince Alt to do this for them. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But they need to get some information and go on a few missions. Jackie laughs and follows V because that’s his job. They make friends and enemies, they gather resources and take down parts of Arasaka because V says it will help. The explosions are always at their heels but it’s okay. They get what they need. He gets to bring home stories of glory back to his Mom and to Misty.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Johnny asks if V was a former Corpo which, no V was just a nomad kid who didn’t know what they were doing six months ago. But they’ve always been kind of neurotic about needing to know information and having as many angles as possible. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then it’s been almost three weeks and he scratches Johnny Silverhand’s name into a piece of metal that’s his grave. “The man who’s saved my life.” he says and Johnny looks human for the third time since he was shoved into Jackie’s brain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They go to Rogue, and for the first time Johnny takes control and Jackie misses a couple of days. He tells Misty when they get the chance to curl together that it was the most terrifying thing. That he doesn’t want to go but if he has to then he has to. He cries himself to sleep that night listening to Misty’s heartbeat. It’s the last quiet he gets before it all goes to hell. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They find Mikoshi at the bottom of Arasaka tower and It’s a shitshow, and Jackie honestly thought they’d die. Rogue and Weyland almost did but V’s there to stop them from dying. Then they bring him to the mainframe and V tells Jackie to plug in. He does, the cyberspace kind of disorienting and V’s also there. V smiles at him sadly and tells him their plan. Johnny would take Jackie’s body, as the chip was making it impossible for Jackie to exist in his own flesh and blood.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And Jackie would take V’s.  He’d argue but V made up their mind ages ago.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Trust me.” They tell him as if he’s not erasing his best friend for his happy ending. As if him going into his friend's body is any better than what Johnny was doing to him.(Even after the first week Johnny didn’t want that any more.) They repeat their mantra “Trust me.” As they tell him that they’ll be back. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jackie wakes up and his body is his own??</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He listens to the messages left behind that V had their body change to look more like him, it wasn’t perfect but it was the closest they could get. Getting used to V’s body is strange, they’re oddly strong, and fast and their aim is ridiculous and Jackie know’s it’s all just muscle memory of the new body but it’s weird. Then again V was weird and he wouldn’t change anything about his best friend. The body is just another reminder that V trusts him and he trusts V.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He misses V, misses that little weirdo. Not so little because they were basically the same height but then again he’s in their body. Though like with all things time marches on and the feeling of being in someone else’s body fades and now it’s his.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Speaking of bodies watching the old guard: Johnny and Rogue is hilarious. They’re always at each other’s throats or being lovey dovey there is no in between. Johnny does music again; somehow makes Jackie’s voice sound good. Even if they have the same voice now, Jackie can’t sing for shit. The band does get together even, though it’s only for one show because </span>
  <em>
    <span>no one</span>
  </em>
  <span> can get along for longer than that one time reunion. Jackie ends up working with Rogue and Johnny on more than one occasion because Arasaka’s corpse was still smoking and they were gonna take advantage of it as much as they could. This makes all three of them legends in the merc community.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>A month passes, then two, then six; then a year. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He gets a ring because this shit should have happened a long time ago. Asking Misty to marry him is the easiest thing in the world. She’d been there through it all, and honestly he can’t even not think about asking her to stay forever. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Planning the wedding is the </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking worst</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Listening to his Mom and Misty talk about it makes him wish he could just grab Misty and elope. In the end he asks Johnny to be his best man and the old rocker just looks like he’s been punched in the gut. Johnny understands that Jackie wanted V but a living legend that spent way too long in Jackie’s brain is a good second choice. Johnny and Rogue start a fight about who’s asking who to the wedding and if it wasn’t for Rogue’s son explaining his mom was allergic to feelings. Well Jackie figures they’re both that way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s still laughing at them when he sees Panam and asks her to come to his wedding because V would have liked her to come. She agrees and it’s in this moment when the Longing for his best friend hurts less like a knife to the chest than a bullet to the brain. Still somehow between all the women in his life the wedding is set. It’s the night before and he’s sitting on the balcony looking out into the stars and he sends a message. Just in case. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The day of the wedding he’s nervous, waiting for her to come down the aisle, he feels like he’s going to puke. He wishes Misty’s parents could have been here but they’ve been dead for years, he kinda wishes they did the old fashioned hand off. It was the one thing they’d both wistfully wanted for her late at night talking about the possibility all those months ago.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The doors open and he stares as Misty comes out flowers in hand and arm in arm with- The breath he takes in sounds like a sob because his best friend V is walking Misty down the aisle. He only gets a second to feel the joy at his best friend being back, who hands Misty off to him with a wink before they take their spot between Johnny and the rest of his wedding party and then he’s only got eyes for his girl. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s after when the party's over, and Johnny even crashes his wedding to ask Rogue to marry him. (He and Misty had talked about it. They had assumed something like this would happen.) That he tracks V down to where they’ve been talking. It sounds like V’s explaining everything. Panam notices him and gives him her chair with a comment about needing to have more beer before their conversation makes sense.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then the both of them are in each other’s arms crying.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There’s one more explanation later. Jackie listens and it explains so much about V and most of the technical stuff goes over his head. He just pulls V into a hug and they wrap their arms around his body and it’s real and almost too much to process.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m glad I trusted you.” He tells V and they end up crying in each other’s arms for a little bit longer. Johnny’s alive, Jackie’s alive, V’s here and Jackie can’t even be mad about how long it took.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now they can All have a happy ending.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is part of a much larger universe where V is a tossed out experiment from Arasaka, I might get to writing things down eventually but my track record is spotty at best. Written for a friend who is just as mad that there's no ending where everyone gets to live.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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